Stoned Bunny – I admit that it’s a stretch to see this rock as a rabbit, but Camelback Mountain’s Praying Monk is obscure.
I love the park service’s pamphlets at the entrance gates. I collect them. In addition to a map, they show all the things to see and do inside the park. When I opened the one for Chiricahua National Monument and looked at all the trails, I thought it looked like a drunken pirate’s treasure map. There are trails on the straight and narrow; trials that go in circles, ones that climb mountains, while others descend into canyons.
Visitors don’t need to hike any of the trails. There are several parking areas where they can take in spectacular vistas. Heck, you don’t even need to get out of the car. However, if you want a genuine Chiricahua experience, you should venture out and walk among the formations. In the World of Rocks, features are hiding from the parking area. Even after all of my recent bellyaching about hiking, I found a short enough trail for me. It’s called the Grotto Trail, and it was pretty level and less than a mile round trip. I completed my tramp in less than 90 minutes, including my photography stops. Over the balance of this month, I will show you the trail’s highlights.
Do you remember several months ago when I wrote how the pixies build trail markers out of stacked rocks—called cairns? Well, there are no cairns in this monument. Using rock stacks to find your way through a park full of stacked rocks is useless. Cairns would be camouflaged. Instead, the WPA installed signposts at junctions and points along the way. How novel.
I found the balanced rock featured in this week’s post not far from the trailhead, so I shot it twice, once on the way out and again on my return. Calling the image Balanced Rock seemed dull because there are so many beside the trails. Then I’d have a series of photos named: balanced rock 1, balanced rock 2, etc. So, as I processed them, I tried to imagine what they resembled. If I close my left eye and stare at this image, it looks like a rabbit with his ears up and the face of Mr. Magoo. If I close my right eye, the image resembles a poorly crafted Easter Island statue.
Trying to decide, I stared at my computer and alternating eyelids when Queen Anne walked into the room, slapped me upside the head, and yelled, “Stop doing that. You’ll put your eye out, kid.” I was on the rabbit at the time, so that’s how it got its name—plus, I ate Stoned Rabbit at a fancy Italian restaurant once; it tasted like chicken.
You can see a larger version of Stoned Bunny on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week I’ll show you another shot that I took on the way to the Grotto. Be sure to come back and take part in the fun.
Organ Pipes – One of the first features you see after entering the park is the Organ Pipe Formation.
Two days have passed since April Fool’s day on Friday. That morning, Queen Anne stopped by my office door and announced, “I’m pregnant.” She’s a one-trick pony because she’s recycled that joke every year that we’ve been married, so I ignored her. However, Friday was an important milestone for me, and since I’ve waited two days, you know I’m not pulling your leg. Friday marks the 50th year since I moved to Arizona. I think that officially makes me overqualified to be a native.
With the month’s change, we’re starting a new project. April Fool’s—we’re not leaving Willcox. I’m just going to show you why we actually traveled to Cochise County and what we did with our afternoons. You’ll recall that I spent mornings in Willcox searching for a decent cup of coffee and shooting the town’s historic buildings. After an hour or so—when the light became too harsh—when I returned to our motel and opened the door, Queen Anne sat on the bed corner bejeweled and makeup finished. “I’m ready for breakfast,” she’d say—who am I kidding? That would never happen. The truth is that I could hear her lyrical voice waft from the bathroom, “I’ll be ready in a minute.” In husband-speak, that phrase meant that I had time for a nap.
The actual purpose of our Willcox visit was to photograph the Chiricahua National Monument. After fifty years of living in Arizona, this was my first visit. It’s usually a half-hour drive southeast of Willcox. Still, we dawdled with a camera and stretched the trip to over an hour. The scenery along County Road 186 reminded me of California’s central valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills. Long butterscotch colored grass filled the broad Sulphur Springs Valley between the Dos Cabezas Mountains (Two Heads in English) on our east to the Dragoons on our west. Arizona ranges don’t tower over its valleys as the Sierra’s do, but at least the air was clear, and we could see all of the mountains.
My After Life – I learned that I could become a rural mail carrier in Cochise County even after I’m dead. That gives me something to do after I’m gone.
On one of the many photo stops that we made, I was able to chat with the local postal carrier and got some great news. He told me that I don’t have to be useless after my death because I can always get a job delivering mail for eternity. You saw my after-life job delivering mail if you watched Funny Farm—the movie. All I have to do to qualify is pass the Civil Service Exam.
The route coming out of Willcox ends at the Junction of county roads 186 and 181, and you turn east on the latter. You pass from open range into a canyon as you head into the Chiricahuas. Within four miles, there’s a pay station. It’s closed due to the pandemic, so the Rangers collect any fees at the visitor’s center. Immediately on the right is a small family cemetery where the Erickson’s rest under shady oak trees. The Erickson’s are the family that homesteaded here after he retired from the Army at Fort Bowie. They established a ranch along Bonita Creek called Faraway Ranch because it’s far away from anything. Their daughter, Lillian, and her husband, Ed Riggs, welcomed guests to the homestead to promote tourism. They built many of the trails still in use, allowing visitors to wander among the unusual columns of eroded stone.
There’s only a single road in the monument that runs from the entrance, past the visitor’s center, climbs through Bonita Creek Canyon, and winds along the ridge of the park’s eastern boundary. Along its length, there are numerous stops, pull-outs, and parking areas where you can stop and take in the view, like this week’s picture that I call Organ Pipes. However, if you want to immerse yourself in the complete gestalt, you should plan on hiking one of the trails. They range from a half-mile to a couple of miles long. You can also link several trails and make your feet suffer to your heat’s delight.
Chiricahua National Monument only has one small campground, which fills quickly—especially during the season. There are only two towns with hotels, Willcox along Interstate 10 and Douglas at the Mexican border if you’re willing to drive further.
The Organ Pipe Formation captured in this week’s image is one of the first displays after the visitor’s center. The columns rise several hundred feet above Bonita Creek and are mirrored on the other side of the road by similar rocks. There wasn’t a way for me to hike above the trees to get a better shot. This picture does not do justice to their scale.
You can see a larger version of Organ Pipes on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week we will hike one of the short trails to look at the park’s natural sculptures. Come back to see what we found.
Schwertner House – Built as an overnight barracks for Army officers during the Apache Wars, the Schwertner family bought and lived in the house until 1980.
In 1880, when Southern Pacific established a whistle-stop in Willcox, there was peace everywhere in the country except in Cochise County. Here the Army was busy battling Cochise and Geronimo in the Chiricahuas. Stupid decisions made by Army officers prolonged the Apache Wars, but that’s another day’s story.
The U.S. Army operated from several forts in the southeast corner of the Arizona Territory, and the newly built railroad was an efficient way to get officers into Arizona. So, the Army immediately paid to have a boarding house built within walking distance of the Willcox train station. The green officers had a place to stay until troops escorted them to Fort Bowie, Fort Grant, or Fort Thomas.
After hostilities ended, Joseph Schwertner bought the barracks for his family’s home. Joe was a well-off Schley saloon owner, one of several that lined Railroad Avenue at the turn of the century. After Joe died in 1929, his heirs continued to live in the house until 1980, when they gifted it to the local historical society. Today, the pretty little yellow house with green shutters is one of several buildings in Willcox on the National Registry list and is open for tours.
In this week’s picture, I shot the historic home at dawn just after I got my first cup of coffee and my eyes finally opened. I called the shot Schwertner House—its proper name. In addition to the lovely morning light on its yellow front and new metal roof, I like the picket fence (I’m a sucker for picket fences because they’re rare in Arizona). The dark green shutters should be next on the TLC list.
What if you’re not into history and old buildings? What else is in Willcox that makes it worth a visit? A mile or so east of the railroad crossing is the town’s golf course. It’s not fancy, and it will never be on the PGA tour, but that’s not important to most golfers. I’ve never been good at stick-and-ball sports, so I’m not keen on golf. However, on the road and just past the course is something that I do find exciting.
Willcox Playa Sandhills – Sandhill Cranes, stop at the Wilcox Playa to rest and feed on their way to Canada.
We started our Willcox story a couple of weeks ago by explaining why Southern Pacific picked this spot for a stop. The railroad located the town along the northeast part of the Willcox Playa. Usually a dry lakebed, there is enough seasonal water to fill the low spots. Because these shallow pools are dependable year after year, migrating waterfowl stop for food and rest.
The most notable flock of birds is the Sandhill Cranes. The large stilt-legged gray birds are in the ponds late winter until the weather warms enough to continue to Canada. The playa is the best place to watch the red-faced birds this side of New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache preserve.
Since the access road encircles the ponds, you can watch the cranes from your car. In freezing mornings, the birds cluster in tight groups, communicating with trills, clucking, and squawks. Before they take to the air, their cacophony gets louder and the pace quicker. Then a half dozen take a couple of steps and flap their long broad wings rising gracefully above the pond. In winter, the air in Sulfur Springs Valley has temperature inversions, so the birds fly up to where the air is warmer and soar over town. The locals proudly call the phenomena Wings over Willcox, or WOW.
You can see a larger version of Schwertner House on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, I have a final shot of historical Willcox, so come back and see what we’ve dug up.
Willcox Depot – The old train depot in Willcox. The local government now uses it for city hall.
Queen Anne and I traveled to Arizona’s southeast corner this week. One of my future projects is in Cochise County, so we spent a couple of nights in Willcox. The eastern half of the state is unlike where we live. That desert has little cactus. Instead, you see blue mountain ranges rising from the 4000′ elevated broad yellow grass-covered valleys and a couple of dry lakes—or Playas, as the Spanish-speaking people call them. This area shows the geographic diversity of Arizona.
It’s almost over, but it’s still winter, which means it’s still snowbird season, so we skipped seasonal rates at the chain motels near Interstate 10 and opted for a cheaper inn closer to town. The original builders probably built it in the 60-70s, but the current owners work hard to keep it clean and contemporary. Our room had a fresh coat of white paint, new blond fake-wood floors, and a useless bright red sash across the foot of the bed. We could watch long freight trains race past on the Southern Pacific tracks from our window. Three or maybe four of them an hour.
Although the throbbing bass from its five engines was enough to vibrate the bed across the linoleum, the trains didn’t keep us awake. That’s because they never slowed or blasted their horns at the town’s only track-crossing. However, we did have an issue with the new stylish duvet cover. It wasn’t like the plush down-comforter that we have at home. We hit town in-between storms, so the nights were clear and cold—below freezing. We tried to heat the room using the window-air conditioner, but every time it cycled on, it was the equivalent of a DC3 engine starting next to the bed. We finally shut it off and slept closer to one another.
Another amenity missing in little places like these was in-room coffee. I can’t function without my morning java. So, I’d get dressed and venture out to secure my fix at first light. In the golden light, I searched the town for a coffee house. Not only did I find one, but I also discovered a neat little mom-and-pop bakery and the Willcox historic district. Since I had hours to kill while I waited for Her Majesty to prepare herself for public viewing, I wandered the eight blocks with coffee in one hand and camera in the other. After a couple of mornings, I had enough images to decide that March’s project would be about Willcox.
If you drive through Willcox on Interstate 10, you won’t see much—only the usual chain motels and burger joints located at the mid-town exit. Even if you drive through town on the freeway bypass, you’ll pass some old motels, a couple of RV parks, and a gas station or two. There are many closed businesses along the road. The exciting stuff is on Railroad Avenue—next to the tracks because Willcox was built by and for the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Long-time readers may recall that the early steam engines ran on fuel and water. Willcox Playa—a seasonal lakebed—is conveniently located midway between El Paso and Phoenix, so Southern Pacific built a whistle-stop there in 1880. The company dubbed the town Maley. It was a single-purpose town for nine years when a guy, General Orlando B. Willcox, got off to stretch his legs and realized that it would be a fabulous place to raise cattle.
Willcox wasn’t even on a significant highway until the Feds completed Interstate 10 in 1960. Before that, the southern Coast-to-Coast highway was US 80. It went south around the Chiricahuas to Douglas and then Tombstone.
This week’s picture directly relates to the railroad birth of Willcox. It’s a shot of the train depot located at the heart of old-town. It’s a large building for a small town and in pretty good shape, considering the railroad closed the depot years ago. Today the trains race past at full speed and don’t even blow their horn. It’s now the town’s city hall. I liked how the pyramid pattern repeats from the turret to the roof peaks. I called this image Willcox Depot.
You can see a larger version of Willcox Depot on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, I’ll show you another location I shot during my Willcox wanderings.
The Point – Afternoon shadows grow long on a portion of the Eagletail Mountains.
After last week’s rant about the failed hike Fred and I attempted in the Eagletail Wilderness Area, some of you have probably concluded that I’ll never do that again. I understand; I had those feelings too. After all, why attempt a 7-mile hike when a) I don’t enjoy hiking, and b) I’m not good at it? Well, it’s because I love being in the wild, and I find it revitalizes my soul.
I didn’t become a nature-lover from my father. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a neighborhood derogatorily called Polack Hill—now Polish Hill. There wasn’t room for nature in the middle of Pittsburgh’s industrial district. I remember seeing the Allegany River between the warehouses from my great-grandmother’s back porch, but no one fished it. The steel mills polluted it so much that the catfish were discolored and had three eyes—like the fish in The Simpsons. Dad didn’t hunt, and the fishing trips he took me on were to fish farms.
It was Ansel Adams that sparked my interest in the natural world. As an impressionable young photographer, I was awed by his works. I wanted to see and shoot all the beautiful places in his pictures. It wasn’t until I moved to Phoenix and joined my brother-in-law on camping trips that ignited my love of the outdoors. He and his friends had the right gear to live well in the wild. That gang taught me that everything tastes better in the dirt. There was something out there that made me feel alive, even if we only swapped Jack Daniels flavored lies in the searing heat of a roaring cowboy fire.
Eagletail Brittlebush – A sure sign in the Sonoran Desert that spring is near is when the Brittle Bush sprouts new blue-gray leaves. Yellow flowers will soon cover the desert floor.
That feeling of adventure is addictive. I need a regular fix. Although I’m happy to roll down my car window and shoot mountains through it, the thrill is more significant when I know that I’m seeing something most people haven’t. Even though Fred and I failed to find the petroglyphs, we filled our memory basket with petrified wood, rose quartz, and signs of wildlife. I’m not sure if or when I’ll go back to the Eagletails. Other places sing the Sirens song for me.
This year is the beginning of my fourth quarter. Although I can’t see it from here, the end of the road is waiting. With every passing year, I better appreciate nature’s importance. That’s why I’ve joked with Queen Anne to place my ashes on Utah’s Powell Peak—but save my eyes. Like that weird little Microsoft Word assistant—Clippy—put them in a formaldehyde-filled jar so I can still look around. I can hardly wait to see the look on some poor camper’s face when they discover me watching them set up their tents.
This week’s picture is of a mountain ridge inside the Eagletail Mountains. I named it The Point for the granite dome at the center. It’s smaller than Courthouse Rock I showed last week. I shot this image after Fred got back from his reconnoitering trip. While I waited, I watched the afternoon shadows grow into a pleasing composition. You can also see the Ben Avery trail that we meant to hike. The flat Jeep trail near the bottom runs from left to right.
You can see a larger version of The Point on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, Queen Anne and I begin a new adventure. I’ll give you a hint; it’s someplace in Arizona that I’ve never visited. Come back then and see what we’ve discovered.
Courthouse Rock – The massive granite monolith attracts climbers and base-jumpers to the Eagletail Wilderness Area.
When you were in school, did you learn about the Lewis and Clark expedition—the party that explored the Louisiana Purchase and discovered the first Starbucks in what’s now called Seattle? Sadly, when it comes to the outdoors, my buddy Fred and I will never rise to that level of notoriety. We’ll most likely go down in history more akin to Laurel and Hardy.
Fred and Jim’s overlapping skill sets – Things don’t always go as we plan when we get together.
Don’t get me wrong, Fred is a brilliant man. After all, he is an engineer, and I can write complete sentences, so when apart, we can navigate the world and safely return home (to the amazement of our wives). But when we go out together, our skill sets overlap like in a Venn diagram, setting up a thinking interference pattern that causes things to go south.
To finish up this month’s project, the Eagletail Mountains, I needed a couple more photos that are close to the subject. Since it’s a wilderness area, that meant hiking. I spent time researching and found a perfect trail on AllTrails. It’s only 3 1/2 miles each way and goes to Indian Springs. There, we should see a spring and a rock wall of petroglyphs. They described the hike as “the easiest trail in the world. It’s an old mine road with little grade change. A baby can do it.”
I began calculating. I walk at 2.2 miles per hour (I measured it using my hand-held Garmin), so 2 hours in, snap a couple of shots, 2 hours out, and add four hours of drive time down and back. The outing should easily take an afternoon. I asked Fred if he would be interested (somebody needed to carry me out when I fell). He said, “Sure.”
Monday at noon, I tossed on some comfortable jeans, my whitest Tee shirt (so the rescue helicopter could spot me), and a baseball cap. I drove to Fred’s house to pick him up. He opened the front door dressed like an L.L. Bean model, with a freshly pressed ‘cool-shirt,’ safari hat, day pack, and walking sticks. He was gorgeous.
It was a beautiful day, and we spent the two-hour drive talking about the hike and sharing the maps we brought. Fred downloaded the AllTrails map onto his iPhone; I had printed the directions to the trailhead; we were ready.
Mistake #1: The easy part was getting to the Gas-Pipeline road, but we had to count the miles to the turnoff. As Fred read the instructions, I watched the odometer. When the instructions said, “At 1 ½ mile, turn onto an unmarked road,” a road appeared on the left. We turned, but the sign that they promised wasn’t there. We continued anyway and came upon a group of young men camped at its end. This place must be our spot, so we parked.
Mistake #2: The boys/men were friendly and were sitting around packing parachutes. If we were in California, I would have expected them to be waxing surfboards. They had come to Courthouse Rock to climb the monolith and then jump off with a parachute—even though the rock wasn’t in danger of crashing. They asked why we had come. They said we were on the wrong road when we told them about the trail. They said we needed to return to the pipeline road and go another mile. Fred and I looked at one another, the maps, and the app. Since the trail was just over the hill, we ignored their directions—like any person holding a man-card should.
Mistake #3: We started hiking cross-country diagonally toward the trail. “Surely, it must be over that low ridge, and we’ll see it from the top,” I told Fred. We hiked to the ridgeline and saw——another hill. We began the long trudge to its top. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we were climbing Courthouse Rock’s talus slope. The rock must have been significantly larger at one time because sharp granite chips covered the ground. They had flaked off the enormous tower, making the footing lose. Falling on them would hurt—a lot.
Fred the Trailblazer – Fred hikes to another ridge to see if it’s the last of our hike. It wasn’t.
After an hour of hiking uphills and over gullies, we reached a point where we could see the trail. It was on the other side of a deep wash. That meant we could get to it if we could cross the dry creek, but it was still a half-mile away. We only managed to cover less than a mile during the past hour. I was ready to quit but could see yet another ridge on the horizon. I hoped it was the last. Fred volunteered to continue seeing if it was our summit while I sat, drank water, and caught my breath. He confirmed that it wasn’t, so we started back when he returned.
Instead of retracing our steps, we went down into the wash, where we could walk the sandy bottom back to the Jeep in half the time. We had to explain our failure to the base-jumping dudes when we reached the camp. “Yeah, I thought you should drive to the other road,” one of them graciously taunted. Since we were in the area, we did. We found the second road with signs, parking, and an informational kiosk. At least we’ll know should we ever go back, but the two-hour drive home was nearly silent for now.
I shot this week’s picture that I call Courthouse Rock at the beginning of our hike. It’s of the enormous granite monolith from its west side. The 20-foot palo verde tree gives scale, so I’m glad the tree photo-bombed my shot.
Click here to see a larger version of Courthouse Rock on its Web Page. Next week, we’ll finish our Eagletail Mountain visit and move on to another project. Hopefully, somewhere I can drive.
In last week’s article, I mentioned that the Eagletail Wilderness encompassed two desert mountain ranges and the Sonoran Desert basin that lies between them. The Eagletail Range was one, while the other is a chain known as Cemetery Ridge. After I gave you their name, I made an offhand remark about how they got that name. Well, I accepted that question as this week’s homework assignment, boys and girls. Here’s what I found—nothing.
Cemetery Ridge – This is a 16 mile-long chain of mountains that make up the southwest flank of the Eagletail Mountain Wilderness Area.
Well, that’s not wholly true because, in my handy Arizona Place Names book, there is this entry:
“This sixteen-mile-long and two-mile-wide, low range was the scene of the killing of several prospectors in the 1870s, according to local stories. Their bodies are said to be buried on the ridge (sic), which is also known as Cemetery Hills.”
When I read that, I thought, “Alright, there’s an interesting historical story to tell my loyal readers.” So I, as the unofficial Marshall Trimble understudy, started a week of research that would have made Jimmy Olson proud. I wanted to find out what miners, who killed them, why, and where are they buried. I asked Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google’s unnamed assistant. None of them knew nothin’.
I did find out that I’m not the only person searching for those answers. Google referred me to the Desert Mountaineer blog. There I found the anonymous author had written a three-part journal covering Cemetery Ridge. The writer is a pretty good storyteller and photographer, but his passion is climbing mountains, and the photographs are incidental, kind of the opposite of what I do.
His three-part saga covers four days of driving the same roads I did, looking for graves. He travels with his dog, sleeps in his truck, and often stops to climb the mountains he passes—sometimes two or three in a day. I’m impressed! Anyway, after exploring the entire length of Cemetery Ridge, he didn’t find our legendary graves. He does mention the place where Deadman Wash crosses Cemetery Ridge on the west side. If ever there were a place to look, that would be where I’d start. It has all the intrigue of a pirate’s treasure map.
Framed between two of the Cemetery Ridge Mountains, Eagletail Peak’s feathers lit by the sunrise.
I shot this week’s image along the Arlington-Clanton Well Road on the south side of Cemetery Ridge. The Ridge’s mountains (like hills really) appear and disappear in a straight line for 16 miles. At one of those places where they slip below the surface like a giant sea-serpent, I saw Eagletail Peak framed and lit by the sunrise. You can make out the ‘tail feathers’ sticking up at the top in the picture. I want to explain that the Eagletail Wilderness is directly under the Los Angeles-Phoenix flyway, so contrails are part of the natural landscape, but they won’t let me fly my drone there.
You can see a larger version of Eagletail Peak on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week we go hunting for more treasure in the Eagletail Range. Come back then and see if we were successful.
